


ZYOVXL

by Rehearsal_Dweller



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-02 17:50:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5257943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehearsal_Dweller/pseuds/Rehearsal_Dweller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you were watching yourself live through the end of the world, what would you do?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. IIOOSZLE

**Author's Note:**

> This goes AU just before DaMVtF, although the opening comes from the end of Weird I.  
> The alt here is a variant on the one in the Twin Trade, but it is NOT a part of TTAU continuity. That'll become very obvious as the story goes on, but I want to establish it up front. It's _not_ a Twin Trade story.
> 
> I had the idea for this story around when DaMVtF came out, but I didn't have a concrete plan until Weirdmageddon I aired and I had a better sense of what Bill's regime would look like. I'll do my best to update regularly, but it's the end of the semester, I have an epilogue to write for another story, and I have the attention span of a gerbil, so no guarantees. 
> 
> Enjoy.

_“Okay, remember, guys. This is a prison bubble designed by Bill. We’ve got to prepare ourselves for what we find in here.”_

_“Whatever it is, we’ll do it together. For Mabel!”_

_“For Mabel!”_

_“For Mabel.”_

 

\--

 

Ursa snapped up in her bed, drenched in sweat and shaking. “Mabel!”

“Huh?” mumbled Max from across the room. “May-bear, are you okay?”

Ursa shook her head, her mouth pressed shut.

“Was it them again?” Max asked, rubbing his eyes. “The other us?”

Ursa nodded.

Max crawled off his bed and crossed the room to sit down next to his sister. He rubbed little circles on her back. “What happened?”

“It was –“ Ursa stopped speaking and let out a choked sob. “Max, it was the end of the world.”

 

\--

 

Ursa Caroline Pines was no stranger to nightmares.

She’d been haunted by them since the Puppet Incident, so waking with a start in the middle of the night is not a new occurrence. Lately, though, her dreams have been different. It started a week ago, just vague impressions of a town – _their_ town – in shambles, and a feeling of all-encompassing terror.

Max reported them to Lee and Ford, who assumed they were a new reaction to the old trauma (but between themselves wondered if they weren’t premonitions – a vision of what was to come). Ford gave her a protective charm.

But the dreams only got worse.

They grew more distinct, and Ursa now knew that they were not visions of her own world.

(She thought -- hoped, but did not know for certain, that they _were_ visions of the future.)

This last one cemented her resolve; she must find a way to contact the other world – to contact her counterpart, a boy called Dipper.

If she was right – if this hadn’t yet happened – she might be the only chance he had to change his universe’s fate.

Perhaps the fate of them all.

 


	2. wiedq t ciwxev duitd

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now the story begins.
> 
> (All of the chapter titles and such use the same cipher key.)

It was August 22nd, and Dipper Pines was asleep.

All was well – relatively well – in Gravity Falls 46’\\. Well, for now.

But Dipper wasn’t thinking about that. He wasn’t exactly thinking about anything, at least on a conscious level. He was asleep.

He was having a pretty cool dream, too. He flew over Canada in a large patent leather tap shoe, with the ribbon tied across his lap like a seatbelt for safety. He was on his way to meet the dragon that breathed the Aurora from the north pole.

“Dipper!”

Very abruptly, Dipper found himself in his vacant attic bedroom at the Mystery Shack.

“Dipper!” the same voice repeated.

Dipper tipped his head from one side to the other a few times, then shook it, a little like trying to get water out of your ears.

“You look really silly doing that,” said the voice, amused. “I’m over here.”

Dipper turned, and there was a girl sitting on Mabel’s bed. She looked like Mabel, but not like Mabel. Her hair was shorter – a windblown mess that just brushed her shoulders – and her teeth were straight and bracket-free. “Mabel?”

“That’s your sister, right?” the girl asked.

“Yeah?” Dipper answered hesitantly.

“I’m not Mabel,” said the girl.

“Yeah,” said Dipper. Suddenly he was very, very sure of that. She didn’t hold herself like Mabel, either. She sat on one foot, with the other knee pulled up to her chest. She was frowning, concentrating hard.

“Look, I’m – I’m you. From another universe,” the girl said. She pinched the bridge of her nose, then looked him squarely in the eye.“My name is Ursa. Look, I - It’s complicated. I can’t stay long; if he finds me here –“

“Who?”

Ursa fixed Dipper with an exasperated look that he’d seen on his sister’s face a million times before. “I can’t say his name, he’d hear. We’re in the mindscape. His turf, not ours. Use your brain, Dippin’ Dot.”

_Bill_. “Oh.”

“Like I said, I can’t stay long,” Ursa said seriously. “It’s not safe. But I had to try to find you, to warn you. Something bad is coming.”

“What do you mean?” asked Dipper. “I mean, that’s really vague.”

“I don’t know, exactly, okay?” said Ursa, rubbing the back of her neck. “But I’ve been having these dreams, about you and your sister and the end of the world.”

“The end of the world,” Dipper repeated. “Are you sure they aren’t just –“

“They’re not _nightmares_ , okay!” snapped Ursa. Her hands flew through choppy, sharp signs as she spoke ( _NOT-DREAM-BAD)_ before falling to grip the edge of the mattress.”You have _no_ idea what’s coming, Dipper. I just – I wanted to warn you. If you’d seen what I’ve seen, you’d – you’d want to warn someone, too.”

Dipper opened his mouth to respond, but Ursa looked over her shoulder, suddenly looking very, very nervous.

“He knows I’m here,” she said. “I have to go.” She fixed Dipper with a steady, serious look. “Your sister, Mabel, she’s the key. I’m not really sure how, only that whatever’s coming has something to do with her. So whatever it is you’re not telling her – whatever it is that has you feeling so guilty it _hurts_? Tell her. Whatever it is, Dipper. She can help.”

Dipper frowned. He could only think of one thing that he wasn’t telling Mabel, but Ford swore him to secrecy over the Rift. He felt a little guilty about not telling Mabel, sure, but not the eating him up from the inside kind Ursa was talking about.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“Well that’s too bad,” Ursa replied. “Because I don’t either.”

“Helpful.”

“Look, I warned you, alright?” said Ursa, digging her fingers into the mattress. “Do what you want with it.”

She looked over her shoulder again.

“Trust Mabel, Dipper,” Ursa repeated. “And stay safe!”

And then she was gone.

Dipper heard an echo of a familiar – slightly unnerving – laugh, and then everything went inky black.

\--

“That was weird.”

Mabel, somewhere across the room in the dark, yawned. “What?”

“I just had a weird dream,” Dipper said. “It’s cool, go back to sleep.”

“Mmmkaaaay,” Mabel yawned.

Her mattress creaked as she rolled over, pulling her blanket up over her shoulders.

Dipper blinked a few times, staring up at the attic ceiling. _Was that real_?

If it _were_ just a dream, it was a distressingly real-feeling one. And he remembered it in vivid detail, down to the white of Ursa’s knuckles as she gripped the mattress. Usually he forgot his dreams as soon as he woke up.

As much as he wanted to believe it had just been a figment of his imagination, Dipper couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d just been given a chance to – something. Change something, fix something, create something.

He couldn’t risk letting it slip by.

“Hey Mabel?”

“Mmmyeah?”

“There’s something I need to tell you.”


	3. mvlo-eec

“And that didn’t raise any red flags?” Mabel asked, frowning. They’d been up since before the sun, but she’d barely said a word until now. “Dip, you _promised_ me we wouldn’t turn into them, but you were just gonna let Ford turn you into a little tiny _him_!”

“Mabel –“

“Dipper,” Mabel interrupted. She pinched the bridge of her nose, not a usual habit of hers, but one Dipper had a sudden memory of Ursa sharing. “Dipper, why are you telling me this now?”

Dipper screwed up his face, bracing himself. “Because, uh, me from another dimension said it was the only way to save the world?”

“ _What?”_

“I had this dream,” said Dipper. “At least, I think it was a dream. A girl –“

“A _girl_?” repeated Mabel, eyebrows raised.

“ _Mabel!”_ Dipper said. “She was like – like you, actually. But not. She said she was me from another universe. She wanted to warn me about something – the end of the world, I think. But it was weird, she seemed really nervous about something.” He shook his head. “No, not nervous. Mabel, she was terrified.”

Mabel patted his hand. “But it was just a dream, Dipper.”

“No,” Dipper insisted. “No, it wasn’t. I could _feel_ it. Do you remember what it was like when we went into Stan’s mind?”

Mabel nodded. “Yeah, it was weird. Like sleeping but not sleeping.”

“That’s what this was like,” said Dipper. “It didn’t _feel_ like a dream, and when I woke up it was like I hadn’t slept at all.”

For a long moment, Mabel didn’t say anything. And then, just when Dipper was starting to worry she’d drag him down to Stan with concerns over his mental health, she sighed. “I believe you, Dipper.”

“You do?” Dipper replied uncertainly. “Because, honestly, I’m not entirely sure _I_ believe me.”

“With all the other crazy stuff we’ve done this summer?” said Mabel. “We went into Stan’s mind. Ford’s been in other dimensions and whatever. Why not?”

Sometimes, all it took to shake Dipper out of an over-thinking, over-worrying spiral was his sister’s quiet, clearheaded intelligence. She didn’t think the way he did – if she did, they wouldn’t be nearly as effective as a team.

Honestly, sitting here in the dim light of dawn with a sister prepared to believe one of the wildest stories Dipper had ever thrown at her, he found himself wondering why he’d ever agreed to cut her out of the loop.

He’d promised her they wouldn’t let themselves turn into Stan and Ford, after all.

“Yeah,” said Dipper, reaching over to take her hand. “Why not?”

\--

Dipper almost panicked when Ford asked him to go adventuring to fix the Rift. It was Mabel who calmed him down again, tucking a radio into his backpack.

“It’ll be okay, Dipper,” she said. “This’ll be even cooler! Simultaneous twin adventures!”

“Yeah,” Dipper said weakly.

\--

Cooler, it was not.

Being separated all day was hellish – Dipper was anxious and distracted, and it made him make mistakes. The walkie-talkies didn’t even work, which made it all worse.

Ford didn’t seem to notice, all bluster and heroism like he was. And then – and then he offered to let Dipper stay on in Gravity Falls as his apprentice.

Dipper was sorely tempted to say yes, wanting nothing more than to stay in the only place he’d ever really felt right in, to do the only thing that had really motivated him in ages. He almost _did_ say yes, but something (an echo in the back of his mind that sounded a bit like Ursa’s voice) stopped him.

_Mabel wouldn’t leave you_.

“Don’t you feel like she’s holding you back?” asked Ford.

“I –“ Dipper faltered. _We won’t turn into them, I promise._ “Ford, do you really think that?”

“Hmm?”

“That Mabel holds me back. Do you really think that?”

“Well, yes,” said Ford, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

In that moment, though Dipper wasn’t really aware of it at the time, the pedestal he’d put _the Author_ on back in June cracked a little.

\--

“I heard what he said.”

“What?”

“That I _hold you back_. I heard him. Are you gonna do it? Stay here and leave me behind forever?”

“Mabel, I –“ But he stalled, stopped just long enough for Mabel’s eyes to fill with tears, just long enough for her to draw her own conclusion and bolt.

It took too long for Dipper to realise that she’d taken the wrong backpack.

\--

Ursa sat on the porch step, staring up at the crimson sky.

“Penny for your thoughts, Urs?” Max asked, flopping down next to her.

“Do you believe in destiny, Maxie?” replied Ursa. She didn’t look around, just kept her eyes on the sky. “Fate?”

“Nah,” said Max. “The laws of the universe can’t bind me.”

Despite herself, Ursa laughed. “You’re a force of nature, Max.”

“You know it,” Max replied decisively. He nudged his sister gently, breaking her from her trance. “What’s wrong, Ursa?”

“I think I was too late, Max.” 


	4. vrtflbeg imkv

“I have to find Mabel!”

Dipper shook off his uncle’s hand, darting into the forest.

“ _Dipper!”_ Ursa’s voice screamed. The world around him went monochromatic.

Suddenly, there was his counterpart, hanging just off the ground and vaguely transparent.

“What?”said Dipper. “Whatever it is, it’s not going to help. It’s too late.”

Ursa looked around. “ _Yeah, I can – I can see that.”_

_“_ What do you want?” Dipper snapped. “I’m in a hurry.”

“ _Are you looking for Mabel?”_ asked Ursa, frowning. _“Or are you working with –“_

“I –“ Dipper froze. “Are you - are you you?”

_“As opposed to – oh, right. No, I’m not Him, Dipper. He’s corporeal now, he’s not in the mindscape.”_

Dipper looked up. Even in the black and white landscape of the mindscape, the tear in the sky was blinding. “Ursa, go away. I don’t have time for this.”

“ _No, Dipper, I –“_

He waved a hand through her, which while it didn’t actually connect to her seemed to startle her. The world snapped back to colour, and in the same instant Ursa was gone.

\--

“So?”

“It’s bad, it’s really bad.”

“As bad, better, or worse than your dreams?”

“As bad. Maybe better.”

“Well that’s good, at least, right?”

“I – I don’t know.”

They sat, knees just touching and hands interlaced between them. Max frowned. “Do you think there’s anything I can do, Urs?”

Ursa’s grip tightened briefly, her fingernails digging into her brother’s skin for half a second. “The spell I did, do you think you could try it? If he finds Mabel before Ford gets himself zapped –“

“Yeah, okay,” said Max. “I’ll do what I can. Try to keep working on that other one, though.”

“Yeah.”

\--

Ford was gone.

(Dipper had watched his confrontation with Bill with dismay; Ford had gone in over-confident and self-important and had gotten pretty well beaten for his trouble. If he hadn't been family, hadn't been _The Author_ , Dipper might even have thought he deserved it for how he'd been acting lately.)

Dipper hadn’t seen Stan in a day and a half.

He’d had another brief vision of his counterpart – _we’re working on something that might help, do you have somewhere safe to sleep tonight? –_ but she hadn’t stayed very long.

He’d been frustrated by her appearance on the first day; annoyed that despite a warning he’d still let things get like this. But now, now that he was wandering alone through a town in shambles, he wished she were around, if only so that he wouldn’t be alone.

_“Dipper, the Mystery Shack. Have you been to the Mystery Shack?”_ Ursa said, popping out of nowhere like she’d been reading his mind. “ _Bill can’t get in there.”_

Dipper smacked his forehead with both hands. “I cannot believe I forgot about that.”

“ _Times of stress. It’s okay. Stan’s there, he’s alive.”_ Ursa said in a voice of forced calm, her eyes glued to Dipper and never straying to his surroundings. “ _I know where Wendy is, too, but –“_ She shut her eyes tight, taking a deep breath. “ _I’m getting dizzy. This is hard to keep up. I’ll see you at the Shack, Dips.”_

With no better place to go or thing to do, Dipper took her advice.

The crowd in the Shack – and it was a proper _crowd_ , including a bunch of kids and led by Stan – almost attacked him when he pushed open the front door. But when they realised it was Dipper, Stan had everyone drop their weapons and ran to the door and scooped Dipper up into a tight hug.

“You’re alive,” he said, just loud enough for Dipper to hear.

Dipper nodded, his face buried in Stan’s shoulder. The weight of what was happening hit him all at once, and he didn’t have it in him to hold back a choked sob.

“Where’s Mabel?” Stan asked. “Ford?”

“Ford’s – Bill has him,” Dipper said haltingly. “And Mabel – I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Stan’s grip on him tightened briefly. “But _you’re_ alive.”

“Yeah, Stan. I’m okay,” said Dipper. “And so are you.”

“I was so worried.”

“Me too, Stan. Me too.”

Finally, reluctantly, Stan set Dipper back on the floor. “Ford put some protective whatsit on the Shack, so it’s turned into a kind of safe house. I went looking for – well, anyone, and I found your little friends, so –“

Stan indicated Pacifica, Candy, and Grenda. They were all dirty and scraped and alone, but they were okay.

Dipper had never really been much of a hugger, and he’d never really been particularly close to any of the girls, but right now he was so relieved to see them alive that he’d hug the living daylights out of them if they’d let him. Not wanting to risk Grenda punching him, however, he settled for waving.

Over their shoulders, in the back of the room, he saw the ghost of Ursa leaning against the doorway. She nodded to him, then walked out the door.

“Stan, I’m going to go up to the attic,” Dipper said. “I need some new clothes.”

Stan nodded. “There should still be some up there.”

Dipper barely registered the weirdness of this statement before pushing through the crowd and climbing the familiar staircase up to his room.

“This is weird, man,” Dipper said, more to himself than – wait. _Ugh, this is weird._

“I feel you, Dippin Dot,” Ursa replied. She was sitting on Mabel’s bed, her legs crossed. She was still transparent – maybe a little more solid than she’d been before, but Dipper wasn’t entirely sure since he hadn’t slept in days – but the world was still in colour this time.

“What’s –“ he waved, trying to indicate the difference but uncertain how to articulate it.

“I used a different spell,” Ursa said. “A modification on the one I used before, I’ve been working on it all week.” She paused, looking at something next to her Dipper couldn’t see. “Yeah, it worked. I don’t know if that’s such a good thing, though, since it relies pretty heavily on the walls between our universes being dangerously unstable.” She ran her hands through her hair, taking a deep breath before looking at Dipper again. “The one I was using before was telepathic.”

“Telepathic?” Dipper repeated. It made sense, since every time she’d talked to him before he’d been pulled into the mindscape, but he hadn’t made the connection. “How?”

“You and I are the same person,” Ursa reminded him. “Our minds are already connected, it just takes some digging to find each other. But humans aren’t really meant for telepathy, and it was getting –“ she frowned, “taxing.”

She rubbed her nose with her wrist.

“Okay, so if this _isn’t_ telepathy, what is it?” asked Dipper.

“This is physical – that’s part of why I suggested you go to the Shack, I’m actually here in my own room as well,” Ursa explained. “Basically it’s the difference between going outside in a blizzard without a coat and moving the curtain to look out a window.”

She sniffed, then wiped her nose again.

“That’s cool,” said Dipper. “If we survive the apocalypse, you should tell me how you figured it out.”

“For sure,” Ursa replied. A tiny drip of blood oozed out of her nose, catching Dipper’s eye before she wiped it away.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Ursa’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second, and she shoved her hands into her pockets. “Don’t worry about me.”

Dipper frowned. He didn’t want his counterpart running herself ragged over something that didn’t even affect her. “Ursa –“

She shook her head minutely, glancing over at whoever it was Dipper couldn’t see. “My brother, Max. I’m not allowed to spellcast unsupervised anymore, Lee’s rules.”

It took Dipper a moment to sort out the relevance of that; she’d phrased it weirdly, and it didn’t really fit with the rest of the conversation. _But maybe that was the point_ , Dipper thought after thinking it over.

“Max can hear you?” Dipper guessed.

Ursa nodded, wiping her nose again. She looked at her brother. “No, he can’t hear you, either.” She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

“Where’s Wendy?” asked Dipper, trying to get back on track. “You said you know where she is?”

“She’s camped out at the mall. Don’t take the car, we’ll walk with you,” Ursa answered.

Dipper nodded. “Yeah.” He frowned again as Ursa swayed a little, closing her eyes tight and gripping the mattress to steady herself. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Ursa looked at her brother again, her mouth pressed into a straight line. “You have no idea.”


	5. gft dphee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be longer, and up like three weeks ago, but the end of the semester happened and I finished tSoL and ultimately I decided that I just wanted to get _something_ up to get back in the swing of working on this.  
>  On a much lighter note than this story, keep an eye out for another new short sometime soon (I hope), because I promised myself I could work on that one after I finished TSOL and updated this.

“I still can’t reach her.”

“I’m not telling him that.”

\--

Dipper came around a tree, and had a sudden unobstructed view of the enormous, cracking, purple bubble suspended over the valley. Right across the front, it was branded with a shooting star – _Mabel’s_ shooting star.

“That can’t be good,” muttered Ursa.

“That’s where she is,” Dipper said. “It has to be!”

Ursa reached for Dipper’s arm, but her hand just waved through his elbow. “Wendy. We need to get to Wendy.” She took a step toward him, wiggling her shoulder a little like she was shaking something off. “You can’t go in there alone.”

“You’re here,” Dipper pointed out.

“I’m incorporeal in your world,” Ursa reminded him, waving her arm more forcefully through his for emphasis. “Kinda useless. Plus, only you can see or hear me – stop it, Max – you need somebody who can back you up.”

Dipper sighed. He was reluctant to take a detour, now that he had such a concrete sense of where he needed to go, but deep down he knew that he didn’t have it in him to do this alone. Pseudo alone.

“Okay.”

Ursa nodded firmly, rocking back on her feet so her weight shifted almost as if she were leaning on something. Dipper supposed that maybe she was; perhaps not everything in the other universe was in the same place, or maybe Max was keeping close by.

Lord knows if Mabel were as white-faced and dizzy-looking as Ursa was right now Dipper wouldn’t let her out of arm’s reach.

They kept walking, the sort of three of them, winding through trees and ducking behind rocks when one of Bill’s minions came too close. Ursa stumbled a few times, but Dipper’s attempts to catch her were (obviously) useless. Something – Max, presumably – did catch her, though, by the arm or the shoulders or around the waist. After the fourth time, she flopped onto a boulder.

“I need to talk to Max for a minute,” she said to Dipper. “Do you mind waiting here for a bit so I can find you again?”

Dipper nodded, dropping cross-legged to the ground.

Ursa – already ghostly – flickered out with a wave.

\--

Max frowned. His sister was a wreck. For all that she said that this spell was less taxing, she was still pale and unstable.

“Ursa –“

She held up a hand. “I know, alright. I know. It’s not – I haven’t been sleeping well, you know that. It’s not the spell.”

Max rocked back on his heels, anxious but not at all sure how to approach this. “You’re wearing yourself out, Urs. And what good are you even doing?”

“He can’t do this alone, Max,” Ursa said, shaking her head. “I know he can’t, because –“ She faltered.

“Why?” Max asked, as gently as he could.

“Because I couldn’t. If you were – I – I couldn’t.”

Max brushed Ursa’s bangs away from her eyes. She had dark circles under her eyes and her lips were noticiably chapped. This close, Max could even see the faint smudge of dry blood under her nose that she thought he hadn’t noticed. He held her face in his hands, his thumbs brushing her cheeks.

“Okay,” he said finally. He pressed a kiss to his sister’s forehead. “Go back to Dipper. I’ll try to get to Mabel again.”

Ursa’s hand came up to rest on one of Max’s. “Thanks.”

She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and mumbling the spell that would project a ghostly copy of her into the other universe.

“Hey, me again,” she said, her eyes locked on Dipper, who was apparently somewhere to her right. Max let his hands fall away from her face, taking a hesitant step back.

He muttered the spell that should’ve sent him careening into Mabel Pines’s mindscape, but all it did was make him sway a little bit on the spot as his consciousness hit a metaphorical brick wall and was flung back into himself. Ursa caught him by the right arm without even looking, though once he was steady again her eyes flicked to him for a nanosecond. He shook his head.

Mabel was still cut off.

\--

“Hey, me again,” Ursa greeted, suddenly popping back into existence next to Dipper.

Dipper jumped, startled. “Gah! Don’t do that!”

“Sorry,” said Ursa, reaching out with her left hand to grab something Dipper couldn’t see. “I didn’t think – sorry. Next time I’ll, uh… I don’t actually know what I’ll do next time. I can’t exactly tap you on the shoulder, can I?”

“That – that’s true,” admitted Dipper.

“We’ll work on it. Let’s just keep going, okay?”

“Yeah.” Dipper ran his hands through his hair. “Okay. The mall, right?”

“The mall,” Ursa confirmed.

Dipper took a deep breath, and then set out. The sooner they got to the mall, the sooner he could find Wendy, the sooner he could get to Mabel.

And the sooner he found Mabel, the sooner this nightmare would be over for him.

He glanced at Ursa. _For all of us._


End file.
